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Dido Alighieri Gender Inversion in the Francesca Episode Carolynn Lund-Mead Driven by desire like the doves of Venus, Francesca and her lover Paolo fly towards Dante and Virgil out of the schiera of Dido: “cotali uscir de la schiera ov’è Dido” [so did these issue from the troop where Dido is] (Inf. 5.85). A schiera is a mobilized group whose members have something in common—at the very least a common leader. Despite their relative obscurity as historical figures, Francesca and Paolo are introduced to us through their association with the legendary Queen of Carthage. What might Dido represent that makes her their prototype, and in some sense their leader? To find out what she signified to Christian readers, let’s first listen to St. Augustine: I was required to learn by heart I know not how many of Aeneas’s wanderings, although forgetful of my own, and to weep over Dido’s death, because she killed herself for love, when all the while amid such things, dying to you, O God my life, I most wretchedly bore myself about with dry eyes. Who can be more wretched than the wretched one who takes no pity on himself, who weeps over Dido’s death, which she brought to pass by love for Aeneas, and who does not weep over his own death, brought to pass by not loving you, O God, light of my heart, bread for the inner mouth of my soul, wedding together my mind and the bosom of my thoughts? I did not love you and I committed fornication against you…I did not weep over these facts, but I wept over the dead Dido “who sought her end by the sword.” I forsook you, and I followed after your lowest creatures…. (Confessions 1.13)1 In this apostrophe to God, the converted Augustine denounces the socalled “higher” Latin literary study he engaged in as a youth. Shouts of PART II TRASMUTAR  121 “Well done,” he recalls, had encouraged him to respond to Dido by “fornicating against his God” (fornicabar abs te), who is now “the spiritual nourishment for the inner mouth of his soul” (panis oris intus animae meae). Not only does Augustine believe that he should not have wasted his time weeping over Dido, but he also agrees with the conclusion of learned men that the story of Aeneas’s sojourn in Carthage is unworthy of consideration because “it is simply not true” (doctiores autem etiam negabunt verum esse).2 Unlike Augustine in the Confessions, Dante in the Convivio considers Virgil ’s story of Dido and Aeneas to be an exemplary tale for a young man. This reversal of its didactic value is accomplished by interpreting the story from the viewpoint of Aeneas rather than of Dido. Though Dante accepts Augustine’s definition of appetite as an inborn impetus towards sudden anger or sexual desire, he goes on to argue that Aeneas demonstrates how a young man must govern his appetite by his reason in order to perfect his noble nature, just as a rider must learn to manage a horse: Questo appetito mai altro no fa che cacciare e fuggire; e qualunque ora esso caccia quello che e quanto si conviene, e fugge quello che e quanto si conviene, l’uomo è ne li termini de la sua perfezione. Veramente questo appetito conviene essere cavalcato da la ragione; ché sì come uno sciolto cavallo, quanto ch’ello sia di natura nobile, per sé, sanza lo buono cavalcatore, bene non si conduce, così questo appetito, che irascibile e concupiscibile si chiama, quanto ch’ello sia nobile, a la ragione obedire conviene, la quale guida quello con freno e con isproni, come buono cavaliere. [The operation of this desire always consists in either pursuing or fleeing something; and whenever it pursues what it ought and as far as it ought, and flees what it ought and as far as it ought, man keeps within the bounds set for his perfection. This desire must, however, have reason in the saddle, for just as a horse, no matter how noble its nature, when it is without bridle and is left to itself without the guidance of an expert rider, does not acquit itself as it should, so this desire (called irascible or appetitive), no matter how noble its nature, needs to obey reason, which directs it with bridle and spurs, like any expert horseman.] (Conv. 4.26.5–6) The rein required for the control of man...

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